WELCOME TO BLACK DANDELION: CONVERGENT VOICE™
What is BLACK DANDELION: CONVERGENT VOICE™?
BLACK DANDELION: CONVERGENT VOICE™ (BDCV) is a multimedia educational platform derived from Semaj Brown’s internationally celebrated poem, Black Dandelion, and from the learning arts innovation, PSL / POETRY AS A SECOND LANGUAGE: THE SEMAJIAN METHOD.™ The method is intergenerational and futuristic, utilizing applied poetry as an integrative technology to expand and amplify literacy capacity, critical thinking, and Social Emotional Learning (SEL) across varying disciplines: ecology & science, art, history, women’s and girls’ empowerment, nutrition, social justice studies, and more. BDCV has been engaged from Flint to West Togo Africa, from elementary school to graduate studies. AT&T licensed a powerful excerpt of the poem for a national television commercial, Dream in Black African American Afrofuturistic Lifestyles Platform, in celebration of generational Black Excellence. Black Enterprise.com, in an April 2023 article, states, Black Dandelion: Convergent Voice Changes the Literacy Game. Elisse Ramey, WNEM Channel 5, CBS affiliate reporter/anchor in a recent feature, broadcasted, Flint Inaugural Poet Laureate receives International Acclaim.
5 STAGES OF BLACK DANDELION: CONVERGENT VOICE™
Stage 1 : Seed Germination, The Rooting
Education and Exploration
INSTRUCTION: Distribute to Students a-d below. Students should view and listen to the video, and read the poem. Students should define any unfamiliar words, and record in their Black Dandelion: Convergent Voice Workbook.
a. Distribute to students the following:
b. Video of Black Dandelion poem
c. Copy of the Poem
d. Quotes from the poem e. Black Dandelion Workbook
Stage 2 : Development, The Growing
Discovery via Discussion and Inquiry
INSTUCTION: Students should write, express verbally, record responses to Discussion Questions a-e in their Black Dandelion: Convergent Voice Workbook. Each student should form a minimum of one question to be addressed by the group or individually and record in their Black Dandelion: Convergent Voice Workbook.
Discussion Questions:
a. How does this poem make you feel? Please convey any positive or negative feelings, and explain why
b. Do you Identify in any way with the speaker? If so, why and in what way?
c. What images come to mind as you hear and read this poem? Please explain how these images are connected to your life and history.
d. What is the message or lesson in this poem? To whom is the poem speaking?
e. What colors do you feel in the reading or listening to of this poem? What significance do these colors have to your life or history?
Stage 3 : Selection and Implementation, The Flowering
Project Manifestation
INSTRUCTION : Students determine if they want to respond to a quote provided in Stage 1, select a different quote, or excerpt or respond to the entire poem. Video responses should not exceed 3 minutes. Written responses should not exceed 1200 words. Students can respond to the Black dandelion poem using many modalities. Students should select one or indicate an interdisciplinary or integrative choice. Responses should be recorded in their Black Dandelion: Convergent Voice Workbook.
Students can Respond in a variety of ways:
- Write a letter to Semaj Brown
- Write a poem
- Create visual Art
- Write a Rap
- Stage a mini play
- Create a video
- Create animation
- Build a science project
- Compose and or perform Music
- Choregraph a dance
- Invent something
- Write a civic letter
- Photography
- Compile research
- Take a survey
- Create an integrated project
(combines more than one genre or discipline)
Stage 4 : Pearl Puffs, The Seeding
Project Submission
- Submit students’ projects in the following formats: pdf, word doc, mp3, to email [email protected]
- Scheduling is flexible. To schedule a start date for organizational or institutional participation in the Black Dandelion: Convergent Voice Platform, contact a Black Dandelion representative at [email protected]
- All participating students will receive acknowledgement in Semaj Brown’s column, “Poetry Confessions: Tea Time with the Poet Laureate” in the Flint Courier News. Compelling, creative and interesting projects will be featured in a Zoom presentation during April, National Poetry Month. In selected locations presentations will be live.
Stage 5 : Seed Distribution Strategies : Dandelioning
(Arriving Soon)
The act of DANDELIONING is full circle, completion of the Black Dandelion: Convergent Voice Life Cycle with career professionals assisting participants to develop and plant a pathway into their futures. A network of participants will yield support to one another.
